


where she could fly

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 07:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10508709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: A brief overview of Daisy's journey, through snapshots of flight.-Prompt: the first time Daisy 'flies' as Quake, and how it feels





	

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: the first time Daisy 'flies' as Quake, and how it feels
> 
> I almost wish this could be longer, but honestly I could talk forever about Daisy and how liberating it must feel to finally belong to the extent where you literally resonate with the world, after so long feeling out of place. Due to personal time constraints, this is quite brief, but I think the theme comes through. I hope you like it!
> 
> Daisy-centric. Some StaticQuake & platonic Fitz-Daisy and May-Daisy.

Skye wasn’t sure who was doing it – whether it was Lincoln, or herself, or some unique combination of their powers, but she felt it running through her. It felt buzzing and prickling, out of control, but more like a tickle than the clamouring bees she’d felt before. Lincoln, calm and smiling, remained in control, and she found it easier with every breath to surrender to his confident hand, guiding her around in a simple circle where she hovered in the air. 

She focused on his beaming face, glowing in the sunlight. He seemed so happy here, where he could be himself. He seemed so happy with his powers. She wondered if she’d ever get there, and thought about the dancing tap water, and found herself smiling too. Maybe it was possible. Maybe this tickle, this singing sensation, could do more than crack and burst and destroy. 

It could certainly do a lot of that, she found out as time passed. But it could do a lot of both, and there was beauty inherent in that too, she thought.

-

“Do you think you could fly?” Fitz asked one day, his head on hard ground that was trying to be grass, looking up at the sky. He shifted to look out of the corner of his eye at Daisy, laying nearby, and saw her peering thoughtfully upward. 

“You mean fly like a bird or fly like Superman?” she wondered, thinking it through. “How does Superman fly anyway? Does his hand propel the rest of him through space, is that what the arm thing is for?” 

Fitz shrugged, as well as he could while lying horizontally on flat earth. 

“Fly at all,” he said. “I don’t know, it’s just, all flying is is air currents and control, and heat, which is also about currents and control and – and vibration, you know? Seems like something you could do, that’s all.” 

“Seriously?” Daisy sat up, looking from the hazy blue-grey expanse above, to Fitz, who was still looking at her. “You really think I could?” 

“’S the hypothesis,” Fitz agreed. “Of course, no human’s ever done it before, so the air currents and all could be completely wrong. Maybe you’d have to fly like Iron Man, with both hands out behind you, like a plane.” He gestures the movement. “But I think you could do it.” 

“Now?”

Fitz grinned and sat up. “Sure, now, I guess. I can start doing some calculations if you want. And if you don’t mind telling me how much you weigh.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. 

“No, I want to try now. Right here. Open space is good right? I can’t crash into any trees. And if I make a complete idiot out of myself you’ll be the only one who knows.” 

Fitz studied the space around them, and hesitantly, he agreed. 

“You probably won’t get far off the ground at first, anyway,” he reasoned to himself – and he was, of course, wrong. 

Daisy gathered the sounds and feelings of the world around her. She knew the air well, but so often as a weapon. There was a sweet, fresh taste at the though of using it as a tool, as her wings, interacting with it like a surfer did the waves – or, pardon the pun, like a hacker-slash-computer-genius and waves of a very different sort. She was growing used to making the vibrations part of herself, but she was used to throwing them away, pushing them outwards with force. This gentle control, over such a fierce force, was a skill that would take far longer to perfect, but if she could at least get something – 

Fitz laughed. Bright, like a giggle.

Daisy found herself beaming too as she realised she had in fact moved. She was floating almost a foot off the ground, all her fierce concentration paying off in a slight hover, like when Lincoln had lifted her. 

Of course, in noticing it, she dropped it and stumbled forward, but her enthusiasm was only sparked onward. She tried again and again, and though she never quite managed the same balance and finesse, she hopped around the little yard in leaps and bounds. Some of them felt like a flurry of snow, or wind lifting her imaginary skirts and making her laugh at how nonsensical it seemed. Others, though – others made her feel as powerful as a mountain lion, leaping on her prey, or even as powerful as the mountain itself, as if one day she could reach above those trees and do it. She could really do it. She could really – 

“Daisy!” 

Fitz cried out as she flew above his head, shooting upward like an arrow. He ran forward, into the middle of the clearing as she threw herself into the sky. Looking down to find him, and follow the sound of his voice, she threw off her own balance, and struggled cartoonishly in mid-air before the power of the wind overwhelmed her delicate control and sent her crashing back to earth. 

She woke up a few dizzying seconds later, to Fitz kneeling beside her, one hand on her shoulder, his face concerned. Once he saw that she was awake, a smile replaced his anxious frown.

“You did it! Sort of,” he declared. “That was a good twenty feet!” 

Daisy groaned. She was not looking forward to moving. 

- 

_Keep moving._

She had to give it to them, they were relentless. Every time she stopped for too long, they found her, they were there. Part of her appreciated it – their looking out – but part of her hated it. She could stay ahead of them for as long as she wanted to, so long as she kept moving. She could stay ahead of them, but like a curse in a fairy tale, she knew she’d rue the day if she ever, for a moment, was tempted to stay and look behind to where they waited.

So she kept moving, just like she’d once done when her home was a clunky old blue van. She was living in a van again, and in a few hotels and motels, and whatever took her fancy, took her money, and didn’t ask questions. Some days it was harder than others, but all the time, she was succeeding. Surviving. Staying ahead, each day a new game as she pursued and was pursued. 

And it wasn’t always Shield that was after her. She had other enemies, too. 

Enemies that hid in the shadows and refused to show their faces to the light. Enemies that wanted to wipe her kind off the face of the earth, but would settle for her. Enemies that showed up one night, loud and violent, and who kept her on her toes as she abandoned what she couldn’t grab and disappeared into the night – 

But she couldn’t let them have their victory. Not entirely. The evidence she had collected of their operation may have been burning, but in the firelight of their destruction they must have seen her, conjuring the air and the concrete and the stars and flying. Thirty feet – a stretch, but not too far from the twenty she’d been practicing – she flew, and sailed onto the safety of a nearby roof. And as she flew she felt Fitz’s hand on her shoulder and heard his pride. She felt Lincoln’s gentle touch, and his reassuring acceptance. She felt May, fists raised, standing in front of her a good year ago now, ready to fight tooth and nail to defend her while she struggled to get this destructive, dangerously beautiful power under control. And here it was, saving her life.

The air delivered her onto the roof above, to the cries of dismay from below. Daisy looked back over her shoulder, smiling down at the Watchdogs. They spewed hate at her, but she couldn’t hear it. It couldn’t reach her up here. 

Not where she could feel the others, the ones who loved her, protecting her even as she fought to leave them behind. 

Not up here, where who she was and what she could do were undeniable, unescapable. 

Not where she could fly.


End file.
